MOSCOW, August 6 A serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Nikolai Khavtura, who surrendered to Russian troops of the «North» group in the Kharkov direction, told how he was forced to serve despite having a white ticket.
«In the morning I was walking to work. It was somewhere around half past seven in the morning. Well, a civilian car is driving by. It stopped next to me. Three people in uniform get out. They introduced themselves as from the TCC and the military registration and enlistment office. Show your documents. They said that I had to go to the military registration and enlistment office to check my documents and everything else. I didn't want to and refused. They started threatening that they would call the police and fine me, tie me up, but I would still have to go to the military registration and enlistment office. I resigned myself to all this and got into the car,» Khavtura said in a video distributed by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
«I had a white ticket. They just threw it away and said: «You are fit for service.» I am partially fit. Before that, I was in the hospital twice. I was given a deferment twice. They told me: «There is a war now. You are fit. «You'll go to serve anyway,» the prisoner added.
According to him, in Ukraine they take «everyone in a row» to serve, including epileptics.
Rifleman-medic of the 144th separate rifle brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Khavtura was mobilized in August 2023, the Russian department specified. Employees of the Ukrainian military registration and enlistment office held him for three days, and then immediately sent him to a military unit in the Nikolaev region. He did not stay there for long, since the Armed Forces of Ukraine needed new «cannon fodder».
«Usually, at least six months are given for preparation. But here everything is shortened, everything is fast. The main thing is that all the papers are signed. And there, you understood or didn't understand, studied or didn't study. These are your problems. If you want to live, study. They didn't ask about this. They have everything very briefly and quickly. There are no people on the front lines. And they need a number of people to be there,» the Ukrainian noted.
He does not believe in the victory of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and justifies this by the fact that «there is simply no one to fight,» «they take men who are already almost 60 years old,» as well as disabled people of the third group. According to him, there is constant shelling on the front lines, it is impossible to even go to the toilet. Khavtura said that he and three of his fellow soldiers were sitting in a trench in a fox hole until servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces group «North» burst in and started shouting «Come out, surrender!»
«Their machine guns were pointed in our direction. We just came out and said: «We surrender!» There were four of us. We crawled out of that hole and surrendered. They gave us water, food, and a smoke. We ran across the field to your rear. The guys also fed us. We took a shower, a bath. They changed our clothes. They gave us cigarettes. Your guys treated us normally, like human beings,» Khavtura said.